Deck Tech: Mirari's Wake

Aaron Forsythe

Pat Chapin is not shy about using hyperbole, so his statement of "This format will be unplayable once everyone realizes how good Mirari's Wake is" should probably be taken with a grain of salt. But Chapin is certainly confident about his chances and his deck, even though he lost his first match with it.

All the deck has to stop the early beats is four Moment's Peace (which are often Speculated for), a trio of Kirtar's Wraths (one of which is in the 'board), and two Firebolts in the 'board. That handful of cards should be able to buy Chapin enough time to get a Wake into play and then cast a huge Flash of Insight or a Time Stretch. "Time Stretch is like Time Spiral," said Chapin, "in that it should just say 'Win the game.'"

One of the deck's weaknesses is to other decks that can Speculate for Moment's Peace, but Chapin has that covered with an Ambassador Laquatus in the sideboard. The other natural enemy of the deck is fast red burn, but Chapin is certain that such a deck isn't viable in this environment.

The deck certainly looks hard to play, and with only three Circular Logics for defense, knowing what to counter against black control seems really important. But Chapin and Eric Taylor, also running the deck, are both sure it was the correct call for this event.

Some members of Team CMU, including Eugene Harvey and Nate Heiss, are running a different Wake deck, designed and tuned by their teammates Paul Sottosanti, Nick Eisel, and Mike Patnik. Their version is the more "traditional" three-color style, and wins mainly via Crush of Wurms. Living Wish gives access to a variety of other beaters, such as Phantom Nishoba; Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor; and Genesis.

"The deck can lose to black if they play a Nantuko Shade on turn two and just start attacking," said Heiss, "But most people don't play the Shade early." Other than that, the only truly bad matchup is Upheaval/Zombie Infestation. "It loses to decks with a lot of counters," said Eugene. "This deck is powerful, but really hard to play."

Will Mirari's Wake break up the trinity of mono-black, blue/green, and blue/white birds? Is there a finally a viable combo deck in this format? We'll see after eight rounds today.

Aaron Forsythe was a professional Magic player and Internet columnist prior to leaving Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to join Wizards of the Coast. His first duty here was Content Manager of this very website, a job that required him to do actual work as opposed to playing games all the time. So when a position opened in R&D, he jumped at the chance. He is now director of Magic R&D, and still plays Magic in his free time when he's not busy playing Magic.